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Bible ITQo^ls. 


TWENTY CRIMES AND VICES 

Sanctioned by Scripture: 


Falsehood and Deception —Cheating —Theft and 
Robbery —Adultery and Prostitution — Murder 
— Wars of Conquest and Extermination — 
Despotism — Intolerance and Persecution — In¬ 
justice to Woman — Unkindness to Children— 
Cruelty to Animals—Human Sacrifices — Canni¬ 
balism — Witchcraft — Slavery — Polygamy — 
Intemperance —Poverty and Vagrancy —Ignor¬ 
ance and Idiocy —Obscenity. 


— BY — 

JOHN E. REMSBURG. 


New York: 

PUBLISHED BY THE TRUTH SEEKER COMPANY, 

33 Clinton Place. 




) 


& 



Bible 


Morals. 


* 


TWENTY CRIMES AND VICES 

Sanctioned by Scripture : 


Falsehood and Deception — Cheating — Theft and 
Robbery — Adultery and Prostitution— Murder 
— Wars of Conquest and Extermination — 
Despotism — Intolerance and Persecution —In¬ 
justice to Woman — Unkindness to Children— 
Cruelty to Animals—Human Sacrifices — Canni¬ 
balism — Witchcraft — Slavery — Polygamy — 
Intemperance — Poverty and Vagrancy — Ignor¬ 
ance and Idiocy—Obscenity. 



JOHN E. REMSBURG. 



New York: 

PUBLISHED BY THE TRUTH SEEKER COMPANY, 

33 Clinton Place. 





Copyrighted, 1885, 

BY 

* 

The Truth Seeeer Company. 






The Truth Seeker Company, 
Freethought Publishers, Printers, and Electrotyp 


2 7 / 


BIBLE MORALS. 


Considering all the heresies, the enormous crimes, the wick¬ 
edness, the astounding follies, which the Bible has been made 
to justify, and which its indiscriminate reading has suggested; 
considering that it has been, indeed, the sword which our Lord 
said he was sending, and that not the devil himself could have 
invented an implement more potent to till the hated world 
with lies and blood and fury, I think certainly that to send 
hawkers over the w r orld loaded with copies of this book, scat¬ 
tering it in all places, among all persons, . . . is the most 

culpable folly of which it is possible for man to be guilty.— 
James Anthony Froude. 

Catholics are condemned by Protestants for having 
clothed with the dogma of infallibility a man; yet 
Protestants do not hesitate themselves to clothe with 
the same dogma a book, the product of man. The 
Bible fills the same office in the Protestant church 
that the "Roman pontiff does in the Catholic church. 
And not content are Protestants with acknowledging 
their allegiance to this paper pope; many of them 
wish to impose its authority upon their Catholic, Jew¬ 
ish, and Freethought neighbors. Three million 
Bibles, it is claimed, were printed and distributed by 
them last year. Millions of children, many of them 
the children of unbelievers, are gathered together 
Sunday after Sunday and taught that its words are 
divine. In this country there is an organization 
pledged to secure the recognition of this book as the 
basis of our civil law, and the supreme authority and 



2 


BIBLE MORALS. 


rule of conduct in our public schools. From the 
dome of our national capitol, and from the cupola of 
every schoolhouse in the land, they seek to unfurl the 
standard of this pope’s supremacy. Luther, the 
founder of Protestantism, protested against the au¬ 
thority of the pope of Borne; I am here to-day to 
protest against the authority of Luther’s pope. 

In opposing the Bible, do not suppose that I am so 
uncharitable as to deny to it any merit. There is 
much in it to be admired. The Mosaic code, crude 
and barbarous as it is, contains many statutes that 
are wise and just; the Proverbs constitute a store¬ 
house of Oriental wisdom; Job, dressed in the rich 
imagery of the East, is a poem of surpassing merit; 
many of the psalms are gems of poesy; David’s 
lament for Saul and Jonathan, and the words spoken 
over his dead Absalom, are touchingly beautiful; the 
Sermon on the Mount, with all its vague and imprac¬ 
ticable teachings, is a composition that has charmed 
and will continue to charm thousands who reject the 
dogma of its author’s divinity; those chapters in 
John which record the last hours of Jesus with his 
disciples are so full of pathos that in reading them 
we forget the Christ and hear only the sad, humar 
voice of the “gentle Nazarene;” Paul’s writings re¬ 
veal a master mind, and through the clouds of his 
theology there bursts forth many a ray of truth. 

I could dwell long and lovingly upon the beauties 
of this book, but duty calls me to another task, less 
inviting, yet not less needful. I am asked to accept 
this book as the revealed will of an all-wise, all-pow¬ 
erful, and all-merciful God, to bow down and wor¬ 
ship it, to make a fetich of it. Among other require¬ 
ments respecting it, I am asked to accept it as an 


BIBLE MOBALS. 


3 


infallible moral guide. I refuse to accept it as such, 
and now proceed to state the reasons why I thus re¬ 
fuse. 

FALSEHOOD AND DECEPTION. 

I refuse to accept the Bible as an infallible moral 
guide, because it sanctions the use of falsehood and 
deception. 

‘•'And the Lord said, Who shall persuade Ahab 
that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead ? And 
one said on this manner, and another said on that 
manner. 

“ And there came forth a spirit and stood before 
the Lord, and said, I will persuade him. 

“ And the Lord said unto him, Wherewith ? And 
he said, I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in 
the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, Thou 
shalt persuade him, and prevail also; go forth and 
do so. 

“Now therefore, behold the Lord hath put a lying 
spirit in the mouth of all these, thy prophets ” 
(1 Kings xxii, 20- 23). 

Four hundred prophets, 

“ All of them inspired by the spirit from on high, 

► And all of them a lying as fast as they can lie.” 

“ If the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken 
a thing, I the Lord have deceived that prophet ” 
(Ezek. xiv, 9). 

“ O Lord, thou hast deceived me ” (Jer. xx, 7). 

“ Wilt thou be altogether unto me as a liar ?” (Jer. 
xv, 18.) 

“ God shall send them strong delusion, that they 
should believe a lie ” (2 Tkess. ii, 11). 

God says to Adam, respecting the forbidden fruit: 
“In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt 


4 


e 


BIBLE MORALS. 


surely die ” (Gen. ii, 17). This declaration proved to 
be untrue. 

In regard to the promised land he says: “ Doubt 
less ye shall not come into the land, concerning which 
I sware to make you dwell therein, . . . and ye 

shall know my breach of promise ” (Num. xiv, 30-34). 

God commands Moses to deceive Pharaoh (Ex. iii, 
18); he rewards the mid wives for their deception 
(Ex. i, 15-20); and instructs Samuel to deceive Saul 
(1 Sam. xvi, 2). 

Thus God is represented in the Bible as continually 
resorting to the use of .falsehood and deceit. The 
patriarchs all follow the example set by him. Abra¬ 
ham tries to deceive Pharaoh and Abimelech (Gen. 
xii, 13-19; xx, 2); Sarah tries to deceive the Lord 
himself (Gen. xviii, 13-15). Abraham becomes the 
parent of a liar. Isaac said of Rebecca, his wife, 
“ She is my sister ” (Gen. xxvi, 7). Rebecca in turn 
deceives her husband (Gen. xxvii, 6-17). Jacob sus¬ 
tains the reputation of the family for lying. 

“ And he came unto his father, and said, My 
father; and he said, Here am I; who art thou, my 
son ? And Jacob said unto his father, I am Esau, 
thy first-born.” 

“ And he discerned him not, so he blessed him. 
And he said, Art thou my very son, Esau ? And he 
said, I am ” (Gen. xxvii, 18-24). 

Jacob’s wives, Leah and Rachel, both used deceit. 
The former deceived her husband (Gen. xxix, 25); 
the latter deceived her father (Gen. xxxi, 34, 35). His 
twelve sons were all addicted to the same vice (Gen. 
xxxvii; xlii, 7), and these became the founders of the 
twelve tribes of Israel, God’s chosen people. 

For her treason and lying Rahab is rewarded 


BIBLE MORALS. 


5 


(Josh, ii, 1-6; vi, 25). Paul canonizes her as a saint, 
and James says: “Was not Eahab the harlot justi¬ 
fied by works, when she had received the messengers, 
and had sent them out another way ?” 

David, Elisha, and Jeremiah, three of God’s holiest 
men, were deliberate liars (1 Sam. xxvii, 8-11; 2 
Kings viii, 7-15). 

Christ taught in parables that he might deceive 
the people (Mark iv, 11, 12). 

Paul says, “ Being crafty, I caught you with 
guile;” in other words, “I deceived you.” Again 
he writes, “For if the truth of God hath more 
abounded through my lie unto his glory, why yet am 
I also judged as a sinner?” (Rom. iii, 7.) 

The primitive Christians, accepting the Bible as 
infallible authority, naturally regarded lying for 
God’s glory not a vice, but a virtue. Mosheim 
says: 

“ It was an established maxim with many Chris¬ 
tians, that it was pardonable in an advocate for re¬ 
ligion to avail himself of fraud and deception, if it' 
were likely they might conduce toward the attain¬ 
ment of any considerable good ” (Eccles. His.). 

“ These officious lies they were wont to say were 
designed for a good end ” (Ibid). 

Bishop Fell thus writes: “ In the first ages of the 
church, so extensiv was the license of forging, so 
credulous wer9 the people in believing, that the evi¬ 
dence of transactions w T as grievously obscured.” 

M. Daille, one of the most distinguished of French 
Protestants, says: “For a good end they made no 
scruple to forge whole books.” 

Dr. Gieseler, professor of theology at Gottingen, 


6 


BIBLE MOItALS. 


says they “ quieted their conscience respecting the 
forgery with the idea of their good intention.” 

Dr. Priestly says they “thought it innocent and 
commendable to lie for the sake of truth.” 

Scaliger says, “ They distrusted the success of 
Christ’s kingdom without the aid of lying.” 

Paul, the great theologian of the first century, and 
the real founder of Christian theology, we have seen, 
justifies the use of falsehood. The two most emi¬ 
nent Christian fathers of the second century were 
Justin Martyr and Irenmus. Of the former Mosheim 
observes, “ Much of what Justin says is wholly un¬ 
deserving of credit;” while Dr. Whitby affirms that 
Irenseus “ scandalously deluded the world with fables 
and lying narrations.” 

Origen, Eusebius, and Jerome, the greatest eccle¬ 
siastical lights of the third, fourth, and fifth centuries, 
respectively, all sanction the use of fraud in promoting 
the interests of the church. 

“A strict regard to truth in disputation,” says 
Bishop Horsley, “ was not one of the virtues of his 
[Origen’s] character.” 

The thirty-second chapter of the Twelfth Book of 
Eusebius’s “ Evangelical Preparation ” bears this 
significant title: “ How far it may be proper to use 
falsehood as a medicin, and for the benefit of those 
who require to bo deceived.” 

Jerome says, “ I do not find fault with an error 
which proceeds from a hatred toward the Jews, and 
a pious zeal for the Christian faith.” 

Bishop Heliodorus affirms that “ a falsehood is a 
good thing when it aids the speaker and does no 
harm to the hearers.” 

That is what Joseph Cook thinks; that is what 


BIBLE MORALS. 


7 


Talmage thinks; that is what nearly every theologian 
thinks. 

That the methods employed in establishing the 
church are still used in perpetuating its power, a 
glance at the so-called Christian literature of the day 
will suffice to show. Read the works of our sectarian 
publishers, examine the volumes that compose our 
Sunday-school libraries, peruse our religious papers 
and periodicals, and you will see that age has but 
confirmed the habit formed in infancy. 

Every church dogma is a lie, and based upon lies. 
The church depends upon fraud for its support. The 
work of its ministers is not to discover and promul¬ 
gate truths, but to invent and disseminate falsehoods. 
In the words of Isaiah, they well might say: “ We 
have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have 
we hid ourselves.” 

• The church offers a premium upon falsehood and 
imposes a punishment upon truthfulness. With a 
bribe in one hand, and a club in the other, she has 
sought to prolong her sway. The allurements of the 
one, and the fear of the other, have filled the world 
with hypocrisy. In our halls of Congress, in the ed¬ 
itorial sanctum, in the professor’s chair, behind the 
counter, in the work-shop, at the fireside, everywhere, 
we find men professing to believe what they know to 
be false, or wearing the seal of silence on their lips, 
while rank imposture stalks abroad and truth is 
trampled in the mire before them. 

Every truth seeker is taunted and ridiculed, every 
truth teller persecuted and defamed. The scientist and 
philosopher are discouraged and opposed, the here¬ 
tic and Infidel calumniated and maligned. In proof 
of this, witness the abuse heaped upon the living 


8 


BIBLE MORALS. 


Huxleys and Ingersolls, see fclie countless calumnies 
circulated against the dead Darwins and Paines. 

CHEATING. 

I refuse to accej)t the Bible as an infallible moral^ 
guide, because it sanctions cheating and the use of 
dishonorable methods in obtaining wealth and power. 

“And Jacob sod [boiled] pottage; and Esau came 
from the fields, and he was faint; and Esau said to 
Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pot¬ 
tage; for I am faint. . . . And Jacob said, Sell 

me this day thy birthright. And Esau said, Behold, 
I am at the point to die; and what profit shall this 
birthright do to me? And Jacob said, Swear to me 
this day; and he sware unto him; and he sold his 
birthright unto Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread 
and pottage of lentiles; and he did eat and rose up 
and went away ” (Gen. xxv, 29-34). 

This transaction, one of the basest ever recorded, 
receives the sanction of the Bible God. Jacob sub¬ 
sequently entered into a co-partnership with God to 
cheat Laban out of his cattle. His cheating his 
brother out of his father’s blessing has been alluded 
to. Thus by defrauding his uncle, his famishing 
brother, and his blind and aged father, this God-be¬ 
loved patriarch stands forth the prince of cheats— 
the patron saint of rogues. 

The Israelites obtain the Egyptians’ property by 
false pretenses. 

“ And I [God] will give this people favor in the 
sight of the Egyptians; and it shall come to pass that 
when ye go, ye shall not go empty; but every woman 
shall borrow of her neighbor, and of her that so- 
journeth in her house, jewels of silver, and jewels of 
gold, and raiment; and ye shall put them upon 


BIBLE MORALS. 


9 


your sons, and upon your daughters; and ye shall 
spoil the Egyptians ” (Ex. iii, 21, 22). 

“ And the Lord said unto Moses, . . . Speak 

now in the ears of the people, and let every man 
borrow of his neighbor, and every woman of her 
neighbor, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold” (Ex. 
xi, 1, 2). 

“And the children of Israel did according to the 
word of Moses; and they borrowed of the Egyptians 
jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment; 
and the Lord gave the people favor in the sight of 
the Egyptians, so that they lent unto them such 
things as they required; and they spoiled the Egyp¬ 
tians” (Ex. xii, 35, 36). 

Here obtaining goods under false pretenses, and 
embezzlement, are commended by God himself. It 
may be claimed that the Egyptians had wronged the 
Israelites. Suppose they had; could God secure 
justice for them only by treachery and fraud ? • Sup¬ 
pose your son worked for a farmer, and that farmer 
defrauded him of his wages; would you advise your 
son to borrow a horse of his employer and decamp 
with it in order to obtain redress, especially when 
you had the power to obtain redress by lawful means? 
Instead of encouraging these slaves in an act that 
would eventually lead them to become a race of 
thieves and robbers, an honest God would have taken 
their masters by the collar and said, “ You have re¬ 
ceived the labor of these men and women; pay them 
for it!” 

In the Mosaic law we find the following beautiful 
statute: 

“Ye shall not eat of anything that dieth of itself; 
thou shalt give it unto the stranger that is in thy 


10 


BIBLE MORALS. 


gates, that he may eat it; or thou mayest sell it unto 
an alien ” (Deut. xiv, 21). 

Out West, a family, good Christians, had a hog to 
die of some disease. What did they do with it? 
Eat it ? No, their Bible told them this would be 
wrong. They dressed it nicely, took it into an ad¬ 
joining neighborhood, and sold it to strangers. Was 
this right? The Bible says it was. 

With the widespread influence of a book inculcat¬ 
ing such lessons in dishonesty, what must be the in¬ 
evitable result? Men distrust their fellow-men; 
along our business thoroughfares Fraud drives with 
brazen front; in almost every article of merchandise 
we buy, we find a lie enshrined; at every corner sits 
some Jacob slyly whittling spotted sticks to win his 
neighbor’s flocks. 

THEFT AND ROBBERY. 

I refuse to accept the Bible as an infallible moral 
guide, because it sanctions theft and robbery. 

Its pages teem with accounts of robberies, and in 
many instances God is said to have planned them and 
shared in the spoils. He instructs Moses to send a 
marauding expedition against the Midianites. They 
put the inhabitants to the sword, and return with 
800,000 cattle. Of this booty God exacts 800 head 
for himself, and 8,000 head for his priests. The re¬ 
mainder he causes to be divided between the soldiers 
and citizens. So elated are the Israelites with their 
success, so grateful to God for his assistance, that 
they make him a gift of 16,000 shekels of stolen 
gold (Num. xxxi). 

When Joshua took Jericho, “they burnt the city 
with fire, and all that was therein; only the silver, 
and the gold, and the vessels of brass and of iron 




BIBLE MORALS. 


11 


they put into the treasury of the Lord ” (Josh, vi, 
19-24). , 

When he captured Ai, “ the cattle and the spoils 
of that city Israel took for a prey unto themselves, 
according unto the word of the Lord which he com¬ 
manded Joshua” (Josh, viii, 27). 

Jehovah gets the spoils of Jericho, and Israel those 
of Ai. 

David, a modest shepherd lad, is placed under the 
tutelage of Jehovah, only to become the cruelest 
robber of his time. On one occasion, purely for 
plunder, he despoiled three nations, and “ saved 
neither man nor woman alive to bring tidings to 
Gath, saying, Lest they should tell on us ” (1 Sam. 
xxvii, 8-12). 

It is said that the Italian bandit never plans a 
robbery without invoking a divine blessing upon his 
undertaking, doubtless believing that the God of 
David, of Moses, and of Joshua still reigns. 

Jacob’s wives, Leah and Eachel, were both thieves. 
Leah appropriated the property of her son; Rachel 
stole her father’s jewels. Neither act was con¬ 
demned. 

Christ enjoined submission to robbery: “Of him 
that taketh away thy goods ask them not again” 
(Luke vi, 30). 

ADULTERY AND PROSTITUTION. 

I refuse to accept the Bible as an infallible moral 
guide,because it sanctions adultery and prostitution. 

Adultery is made prominent by the recital of the 
numerous adulteries of Abraham, Lot, Jacob, Judah, 
Samson, David, and other Bible saints; and sancti¬ 
fied by the approved adulteries of Abraham and, 
Jacob. 


12 


BIBLE MOItALS. 


Both Abraham and Isaac were willing to sell the 
virtue of their wives to save themselves from harm. 

Two instances are recorded of fathers having 
offered their own daughters to gratify the lust of a 
sensual mob, and these abominable acts are repre¬ 
sented as especially meritorious. Bead the nine¬ 
teenth chapter of Genesis, and the nineteenth chapter 
of Judges; dwell upon the eighth verse of the former, 
and the twenty-fourth verse of the latter; and then 
if you can indorse the spirit of these narratives, you 
are unfit to be the parent of a daughter. 

Th9 Mosaic law authorizes a father to sell his 
daughter for a concubine or mistress (euphemistically 
translated “ maid servant’ 5 ). God's instructions re¬ 
specting the thirty-two thousand captive Midianite 
maidens, impliedly sanction concubinage and pros¬ 
titution. 

Luther, drawing his morality from the Bible, gave 
concubinage his indorsement: 

“ There is nothing unusual in princes keeping con¬ 
cubines; and although the lower orders may not per¬ 
ceive the excuses of the thing, the more intelligent 
know how to make allowance ” (Consilium). 

God instructs his prophet Hosea to marry a pros¬ 
titute. He subsequently commands him to love and 
hire an adultres3 (Hosea i, 2, 3; iii, 1, 2). 

Christ forgave the woman taken in adultery, while 
his favorite female companion was a reformed (?) 
prostitute. Beferring to his female ancestors, Hr. 
Alexander Walker, a Christian,-says: 

“ It is remarkable that in the genealogy of Christ, 
only four women have been named: Tamar, who 
. seduced the father of her late husband; Bachab, a 
common prostitute; Buth, who, instead of marrying 


BIBLE MjOBALS. 


13 


one of her cousins, went to bed with another of them; 
and Bethsheba, an adultress, who espoused David, 
the murderer of her first husband ” (Woman, p. 330). 

It is an indisputable fact that the most notorious 
adulterers are those whose professions make them 
most familiar with the teachings of the Bible, and 
compel them to accept its teachings as divine. Dar¬ 
ing the past seven years the secular press of this 
country has reported a total of no less than 849 
sexual crimes committed against women by the 
clergy. In many instances these lecherous priests 
had cited scripture to their victims to aid them in 
their infamous designs. 

MURDER. 

I refuse to accept the Bible as an infallible moral 
guide, because it sanctions murder. 

It is true the Sixth Commandment says, “ Thou 
shalt not kill;” but this law is practically annulled by 
•innumerable commands from the same source, like 
the following, to kill: 

“ Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Put every 
man his sword by his side, and go in and out from 
gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every 
man his brother, and every man his companion, and 
every man his neighbor” (Ex. xxxii, 27). 

“Spare them not, but slay both man and woman, 
infant and suckling ” (1 Sam. xv, 3). 

“ Slay utterly old and young, both maids and little 
children ” (Ezek. ix, 6). 

“ Cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from 
blood ” (Jer. xlviii, 10). 

For the leader and legislator of his chosen people, 
God selects a murderer. The first recorded act of 
Moses was premeditated murder. “ He looked this 


14 


BIBLE MORALS. 


way and that way, and when he saw that there was 
no man, he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in the 
sand ” (Ex. ii, 12). 

For committing a murder, Phinehas is rewarded by 
Jehovah with “ the covenant of an everlasting priest¬ 
hood ” (Num. xxv, 6-13). 

Samuel “hewed 4g a g>” a captive king, “ in pieces 
before the Lord ” (1 Sam. xv, 32, 33). 

Jehu murders all the house of Ahab. 

“ And Joram turned his hands and fled, and said 
to Ahaziah, There is treachery, O Ahaziah. And 
Jehu drew a bow with his full strength, and smote 
Jehoram between his arms, and the arrow went out 
at his heart and he sunk down in his chariot. 

“But when Ahaziah, the king of Judah, saw this, 
he fled by the way of the garden house. And Jehu 
followed after him, and said, Smite him also in the 
chariot. And they did so. 

“ And when Jehu was come to Jezreel, Jezeb.d 
heard of it, and she painted her face, and tired her 
head, and looked out at a window. And as Jehu 
entered in at the gate she said, Had Zimri peace who 
slew his master ? And he lifted up his face to the 
window, and said, Who is on my side ? Who? And 
there looked out to him two or three eunuchs. And 
he said, Throw her down. So they threw her down, 
and some of her blood was sprinkled on the wall, and 
on the horses; and he trode her under foot. And 
when he was come in, he did eat and drink, and said, 
Go, see now this cursed woman, and bury her; for 
she is a king’s daughter. And they went to bury her: 
but they found no more of her than the skull, and 
the feet, and the palms of her hands.” 

The dogs had devoured her. 


BIBLE MORALS. 


15 


“And Ahab had seventy sons in Samaria. And 
Jehu wrote letters and sent to Samaria. . . . And 
it came to pass when the letter came to them, that 
they took the king's sons, and slew seventy persons, 
and put their heads in baskets, and sent him them to 
Jezreel.” 

“ So Jehu slew all that remained of the house of 
Ahab in Jezreel, and all his great men, and his kins¬ 
folks, and his priests, until he left him none remain- 
mg. 

“ And the Lord said unto Jehu, Because thou hast 
done well in executing that which is right in mine 
eyes, and hast done unto the house of Ahab accord¬ 
ing to all that was in mine heart, thy children of the 
fourth generation shall sit on the throne of Israel ” 
(2 Kings ix, 23, 24, 27, 30-35; x, 1, 7, 11, 30). 

The as-assination of Eglon by Ehud was charac¬ 
terized by the basest treachery and brutality. Eglon 
was king of Israel. Ehud carried a present to him, 
and after he had delivered the present he told the 
king that he had a private message for him. Eglon 
ordered his attendants to retire, and when alone 
Ehud drew a largo dagger from beneath his cloak and 
thrust it through the body of the king. And the 
Bible tells us that God raised up Ehud expressly for 
this work (Jud. iii, 15-23). 

The warmest eulogy in the Bibh> is bestowed upon 
a murderess. Sisera is a fugitive from battle. He 
reaches in safety the tent of Heber, his friend. Heber 
is absent, but Jael, his wife, receives the fugitive, and 
bids him welcome. She gives him food, spreads a 
soft couch for him, and covers him with her mantle. 
Wearied with his retreat, and unconscious of impend¬ 
ing danger, Sisera soon sinks into a profound slum- 


16 


BIBLE MORALS. 


ber. With a tent nail in one hand, and a hammer in 
the other, Jael approaches the bedside of her sleep¬ 
ing guest. She bends over him, listens to assure 
herself that he is asleep, then places the nail against 
his temple, and with a blow drives it through his 
head. A struggle, and Sisera is dead, a victim of one 
of the most damnable deeds ever committed. 

In honor of this assassination, God’s favorite 
prophetess, Deborah, sings: 

“ Blessed above women shall Jael, the wife of 
Heber the Kenite, be; blessed shall she be above 
women in the tent. He asked water, and she gave 
him milk; she brought forth butter in a lordly dish. 
She put her hand to the nail, and her right hand to 
the workmen’s hammer; and with the hammer she 
smote Sisera, she smote off his head, when she had 
pierced and stricken through his temples. At her 
feet he bowed, he fell, he lay down; at her feet he 
bowed, he fell: where he bowed, there he fell down 
dead. The mother of Sisera looked out at a window, 
and cried through the lattice, Why is his chariot so 
long in coming? Why tarry the wheels of his 
chariot?” (Jud. v, 24-28.) 

We had a Kansas girl who followed in the foot¬ 
steps of this “ blessed woman.” Years ago, across 
the prairies of southern Kansas stretched a lonely 
road. By its side, far from other habitations, stood 
an unpretentious dwelling, inhabited by four persons 
—father, mother, son, and daughter. But the daugh¬ 
ter was the ruling spirit there. Their only volume, 
we are told, was a Bible, and this the daughter read. 
The house contains two rooms besides the cellar. 
The rooms are separated simply by a curtain. In 
the front room is kept a small stock of groceries. 


BIBLE MORALS. 


17 


Here, too, with its back against the curtain, and 
fastened to the floor, stands a chair. Above the door 
is a sign with this inviting word, “ Provisions.” A 
traveler enters and makes some purchases, displaying 
a well-filled purse. He is treated hospitably, and in¬ 
vited to remain awhile and rest. Wearied, he drops 
into the chair, his head pressing against the curtain. 
Armed with a hammer, this follower of Jael now ap¬ 
proaches from the rear. One well-directed blow, and 
the tired traveler sinks into eternal rest. His pockets 
are rifled, and his body thrown into the cellar, to be 
taken out. at night and buried in the little garden 
behind the dwelling. Time rolls on; the traveler 
does not return. Day after day, his wife at home, 
with anxious heart, peers through the window and 
sighs, “ Why don’t he come ?” At length suspicion 
rests upon thisjden of infamy. A search is instituted, 
and the garden is found to be a cemetery, filled with 
the bodies of murdered travelers—one a little child. 
In the mean time this female monster with her kin 
has fled. Detectives are still searching for her. 
They’ll never find her. Where is she ? In heaven 
with Jael. Now let some modern Deborah sing, 
“ Blessed above maidens shall Kate Bender be!” 

WARS OF CONQUEST AND EXTERMINATION. 

I refuse to accept the Bible as an infallible moral 
guide, because it sanctions wars of conquest and ex¬ 
termination. 

The Old Testament is largely a record of wars and 
massacres. God is represented as “ a man of war.” 
At his command whole nations are exterminated. 

“ Ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land 
from before you, . . . and ye shall dispossess 


18 


BIBLE MORALS. 


the inhabitants of the land, and dwell therein ” 
(Num. xxxiii, 52, 53). 

“Of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy 
God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save 
alive nothing that breatheth: but thou shalt utterly 
destroy them” (Deut. xx, 16, 17). 

“And they warred against the Midianites, as the 
Lord commanded Moses; and they slew all the males. 
. . . And the children of Israel took all the women 

of Midian captives, and their little ones, and took the 
spoil of all their cattle, and all their flocks, and all 
their goods. And they burnt all their cities wherein 
they dwelt, and all their goodly castles with fire ” 
(Num. xxxi, 7-10). 

Moses is angry because the women and children 
have been saved, and from this fiendish conqueror 
comes the mandate: “Kill every male among the lit¬ 
tle ones, and kill every woman that hath known man.” 

The mourning remnants of twenty thousand fami¬ 
lies are thus to be destroyed. The fathers, far away, 
lie still in death beside the smouldering ruins of their 
once fair homes; and now their wives and little ones 
are doomed to die. The signal is sounded, and the 
massacre begins. The mothers, on bended knees, 
with tearful eyes and pleading lips, are ruthlessly cut 
down. Their prattling babes, in unsuspecting inno¬ 
cence, smile on the uplifted sword as if it were a glit¬ 
tering toy, and the next moment feel it speeding 
through their little frames. The daughters only are 
spared—spared to be the wretched slaves of those 
whose hands are red with the life-blood of their dear 
ones. 

And this is but a prelude to the sanguinary scenes 
that are to follow. 


BIBLE MORALS. 


19 


“ Rise ye up, take your journey, and pass over the 
river Arnon; behold I have given into thine hand 
Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon, and his land: 
begin to possess it, and contend with him in battle. 
This day will I begin to put the dread of thee and 
the fear of thee upon the nations that are under the 
whole heaven, who shall hear report of thee, and 
shall tremble, and be in anguish because of thee.” 

“ And we took all his cities at that time, and ut¬ 
terly destroyed the men, and the women, and the lit¬ 
tle ones of every city, we left none to remain ” (Deut. 
ii, 24, 25, 34). 

“ The Lord our God delivered into our hands Og 
also, the king of Bashan, and all his people: and we 
smote him until none was left to him remaining. 
And we took all his cities at that time, there was not 
a city which we took not from them, threescore cities. 

. . . And we utterly destroyed them as we did 

unto Sihon king of Heshbon, utterly destroying the 
men, women, and children of every city” (Deut. iii, 
3-6). 

Moses dies, and Joshua next leads Jehovah’s troops. 

“ And the Lord said unto Joshua, See, X have given 
into thine hand Jericho. . . . And they utterly 

destroyed all that was in that city, both man and 
woman, young and old ” (Josh, vi, 2, 21). 

“And the Lord said unto Joshua, Stretch out the 
spear that is in thy hand toward Ai; for I will give it 
into thine hand. . . . And so it was, that all that 

fell that day, both of men and women, were twelve 
thousand. . . . And Joshua burnt Ai, and made 

it a heap forever ” (Josh, viii, 18, 25, 28). 

“ And Joshua passed from Libnah, and all Israel 
with him, unto Lachish, and encamped against it, 


20 


BIBLE MOBALS. 


and fought against it. And the Lord delivered La- 
chish into the hand of Israel, which took it on the 
second day, and smote it with the edge of the 
sword, and all the souls that were therein ” (Josh, x, 
31, 32). 

“ And from Lachish Joshua passed unto Eglon, and 
all Israel with him; and they encamped against it, 
and fought against it. And they took it on that day, 
and smote it with the edge of the sword, and all the 
souls that were therein he utterly destroyed that day ” 
(Josh, x, 34, 35). 

Thus city after city falls, and nation after nation is 
vanquished, until thirty-one kingdoms have been de¬ 
stroyed. And still there “ remaineth much land to 
be possessed,” and many millions more of unoffend¬ 
ing people to be slain to please this God of War. 

Christ came heralded as the “prince Of peace.” 
But he “ came not to send ’peace, but a sword ”—a 
sword his own arm was too weak to wield, but which 
his followers have used with dire effect. Expunge 
from the history of Christendom the record of its 
thousand wars and little will remain. From the time 
that Constantine inscribed the emblem of the cross 
upon his banner to the present hour, the church of 
Christ has been upheld by the sword. Five million 
troops maintain its political supremacy in Europe 
to-day. To “ express our national acknowledgment 
of Almighty God as the source of all authority in civil 
government; of the Lord Jesus Christ as the ruler 
of nations, and of his revealed will as of supreme au¬ 
thority;” in short, to make this a “Christian nation,” 
as Bible moralists demand, means a standing army 
in this country of five hundred thousand men. 

The Bible has inspired more wars than all else 


BIBLE MORALS. 


21 


combined. It is a fountain of blood, and the crimson 
rivers that have flowed from it would float the navies 
of the world. 

DESPOTISM. 

I refuse to accept the Billie as an infallible moral 
guide, because' it enjoins submission to tyrants. 

“ Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man, . 

. . whether it be to kings as supreme; or unto 
governors” (1 Pet. ii, 13). 

“ Let every soul be subject unto the higher pow¬ 
ers. For there is no power but of God. "Whosoever 
therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance 
of God; and they that resist shall receive to them¬ 
selves damnation ” (Rom. xiii, 1, 2). 

And these sentiments were uttered when a Nero 
sat upon the throne—when Palestine was being 
crushed beneath -the iron heel of despotism—when 
brave and patriotic men were struggling for freedom. 

The Bible has ever been the bulwark of tyranny. 
When the oppressed millions of France were endeav- 
oring’to throw off their yoke—when the Washingtons, 
the Franklins, the Paines, and the Jeffersons were 
contending for American lib. rty—craven priests 
stood up in the pulpit, opened this book, and gravely 
read: “The powers that be are ordained of God; 
they that resist shall receive to themselves damna¬ 
tion.” 

INTOLEKANCE AND PEESECUTION. 

I refuse to accept the Bible as an infallible moral 
guide, because its teachings have filled the world with 
intolerance and persecution. 

“If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, 
or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy 
friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee se- 


22 


BIBLE MOBALS. 


cretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods. . » 

Namely, of the gods of the people which are round 
about you. . . Thou shalt not consent unto him; 

neither shall thine eye pity him; neither shalt thou 
spare, neither shalt thou conceal him; but thou shalt 
surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to 
put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the 
people ” (Deut. xiii, 6-9). 

If you believe the Bible to be infallible, you must 
believe it to be your duty to put to death the unbe¬ 
lieving brother that attempts to alienate you from 
your faith. If you are a Catholic, and your children 
become Protestants and endeavor to convince you 
that Protestantism is the true religion, you should 
kill them. If you are a Protestant, and your wife 
embraces the Catholic faith and desires you to accept 
it, let her die. 

“ He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; 
but he that believeth not shall be damned” (Mark 
xvi, 16). 

“ Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire ” 
(Matt, xxv, 41). 

“These shall go away into everlasting punish¬ 
ment” (Matt, xxv, 46). 

“ Cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be 
quenched ” (Mark ix, 45). 

These passages ought to consign to everlasting 
abhorrence the being who uttered them, the book con¬ 
taining them, and the church indorsing them. This 
dogma of endless punishment is the dogma of fiends. 

I had rather trace my descent to the tiger or hyena 
than to the creation of a God who dooms his creat¬ 
ures to eternal pain; and the time will come when 
the remembrance of the theologians who have taught 


BIBLE MORALS. 23 

this hideous lie will provoke more shame and pity 
than the ancestral apes do now. 

“ If there come any unto you, and bring not this 
doctrine, receive him not into your house ” (2 John • 

i, 10). 

Amid the storms of a winter night, a traveler, per¬ 
ishing with cold and hunger, knocks at your door 
and begs for food and shelter. You interrogate him 
as to his religious belief, and finding that he is not a 
member of your church, you forbid him to enter. In 
the morning when you discover his lifeless body by 
the roadside, how impressed you will be with the 
transcendent beauty of Bible morals! 

Paul preached a sermon upon charity, and then 
wrote to the Gailatians as follows: 

“If any man preach any other gospel unto you * 
than that ye have received, let him be accursed 
(Gal. i, 9). 

From the same pen came this sneaking, infamous 
hint: 

“I would they were even cut off which trouble 
you ” (Gal. v, 12). 

What ghastly fruits these teachings have produced! 
We see earth covered with the yellow bones of mur¬ 
dered heretics and scholars; we see the persecutions 
and butcheries of Constantine, of Theodosius, of 
Clovis, of Justinian, and of Charlemagne; we see the 
Crusades, in which nearly twenty millions perish; we 
see the followers of Godfrey in Jerusalem—see the 
indiscriminate massacre of men, women, and children 
—see the mosques piled seven deep with murdered 
Saracens—the Jews burnt in their synagogues; we 
see Cceur de Lion slaughter in cold blood thousands 
of captive Infidels; we see the Franks in Constanti- 


24 


BIBLE MORALS. 


nople, plundering, ravishing, murdering; we see the 
Moors expelled from Spain; we see the murder of 
the Huguenots and Waldenses—the slaughter of 
German peasants—the desolation of Ireland—Hol¬ 
land covered with blood; we witness Smithfield and 
Bartholomew; we see the Inquisition with its count¬ 
less instruments of fiendish cruelty; we see the Auto- 
da-fe,, where heretics clad in mockery are led to tor¬ 
ture and to death; we see men stretched upon the 
rack, disjointed, and torn limb from limb; we see 
them flayed alive—their bleeding bodies seared with 
red-hot irons; we see them covered with pitch and 
oil and set on fire; we see them hurled headlong 
from towers to the stony streets below; we see them 
buried alive; we see them hanged and quartered; we 
see their eyes bored out with heated augers—their 
tongues torn out—their bones broken with hammers 
—their bodies pierced with a thousand needles; we 
see aged women tied to the heels of fiery steeds—see 
their mangled and bleeding bodies dragged with 
lightning speed over the frozen earth; we see new¬ 
born babes flung into the flames to perish with their 
mothers, or with their mothers sewed in sacks and 
sunk into the sea; in short, on every hand, we see 
hate, torture, death! 

But, thanks to the brave Infidels that have gone 
before, you, Bible moralists, can use these instru¬ 
ments of cruelty to silence heretics to Christianity no 
'more. 

“ Where are the hands which once for this foul creed, 

’Mid flame and torture made an Atheist bleed ? 

Gone—like the powers your fathers used so well 
To send souls heavenward through the flames of hell. 

And you, poor palsied creatures ! you ere long, 


BIBLE MORALS. 


25 


With them thrice cursed shall swell Gehenna’s throng. 
Your God is dead; your heaven a hope bewrayed; 

Your hell a by-word, and your creed a trade, 

Your vengeance—what? A mere polluting touch— 

A cripple striking with a broken crutch 1” 

— Lara. 

INJUSTICE TO WOMAN. 

I refuse to accept the Bible as an infallible moral 
guide, because it has degraded woman. 

The holy offices of wife and mother it covers with 
reproach. Its teachings carried out, as they were 
during centuries of Christian rule, leave woman but 
two paths in which to tread—the one leading into 
slavery, the other into exile. Servitude in the house 
of a husband, or self-banishment to a convent: these 
are the sad alternatives presented for her choice. 

“ Thy desire shall be to thy husband and he shall 
rule over thee ” (Gen. iii, 16). 

“ Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands ” 
(Col. iii, 18). 

“ As the church is subject unto Christ, so let the 
wives be to their own husbands in everything ” (Eph. 
v, 24). 

“ Let your women keep silence in the churches, 
for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they 
are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith 
the law. And if they will learn anything, let them 
ask their husbands at home; for it is a shame for a 
woman to speak in the church ” (1 Cor. xiv, 34, 35.) 

“ Ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands. 

. . For after this manner in the old time the 

holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned them¬ 
selves, being in subjection to their own husbands; 
even as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord” 
(1 Peter iii, 1-6). 


26 


BIBLE MORALS. 


“Let woman learn in silence with all subjec¬ 
tion. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to 
usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. 
For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam 
was not deceived, but the woman being deceived 
was in the transgression” (1 Tim ii, 11-14). 

Oh! the unspeakable outrage that woman has 
suffered because of that old Jewish fable! 

The teachings of the Bible respecting marriage are 
an insult to every married woman. Christ dis¬ 
couraged marriage (Matt, xix, 10-12); while a more 
despicable dissertation on marriage than Paul gives 
in the seventh chapter of 1 Corinthians was never 
penned. 

In contracting matrimonial alliances, woman’s 
rights and choice are not consulted. The father 
does his daughter’s courting, and sells or gives her 
to whom he pleases. A father is even allowed to sell 
his daughter for a slave (Ex. xxi, 7). In the Deca¬ 
logue, the wife is classed with slaves and cattle as a 
mere chattel. 

Kidnapping is commanded for the purpose of ob¬ 
taining wives. 

“Therefore they [God’s priests] commanded the 
children of Benjamin, saying, .Go and lie in wait in 
the vineyards; and see, and, behold, if the daugh¬ 
ters of Shiloh come out to dance in dances, then come 
ye out of the vineyards, and catch you every man his 
wife of the daughters of Shiloh, and go to the land of 
Benjamin. . . And the children of Benjamin did 

so, and took them wives according to their number 
of them that danced whom they caught” (Jud. xxi, 
20-23). 

The Levitical law makes motherhood a sin that can 


BIBLE MORALS. 


27 


be expiated only by offering a sin offering at the 
birth of every child. The degree of sinfulness 
depends upon the sex of the child; giving birth to a 
daughter being esteemed a greater sin than giving 
birth to a son ” (Lev. xii). 

The laws of the Bible in regard to divorce are most 
unjust. A husband is permitted to divorce his wife 
if she displease him, while a wife is not allowed 
to obta n a divorce for any cause whatever. 

“ When a man hath taken a wife, and marries her, 
and it come to pass that she find no favor in his eyes, 
. . . then let him write her a bill of divorcement, 

and give it in her hand, and send her out of his 
house” (Deut. xxiv, 1). 

“When thou goest forth to war against thine ene¬ 
mies, and the Lord thy God hath delivered them into 
thine hands, and thou hast taken them captive, and 
seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and 
hast a desire unto her that thou wouldst have her to 
thy wife; then thou shalt bring her home to thine 
house. . . . And it shall be, if thou have no de¬ 

light in her, then thou shalt let her go whither she 
will” (Deut. xxi, 10-14). 

Wives are compelled to suffer outrage for the sins 
of their husbands. 

“ Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will raise up evil 
against thee out of thine own house, and I will take 
thy wives before thine eyes, and give them unto thy 
neighbor, and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight 
of this sun ” (2 Sam. xii, 11). 

“Their houses shall be spoiled and their wives 
ravished” (Is. xiii, 16). 

“ I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to 


28 


BIBLE MORALS. 


battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses 
rifled, and the women ravished ” (Zech. xiv, 2). 

“ Let their wives be bereaved of their children and 
be widows” (Jer. xviii, 21). 

The teachings of the Bible have been used by the 
church to keep woman in a subordinate position. 
“ There is not a more cruel chapter in history,” says 
the Bev. Moncure D. Conway, “than that which re¬ 
cords the arrest by Christianity of the natural growth 
of European civilization regarding woman. In Ger¬ 
many it found woman participating in the legislative 
assembly, and sharing the interests and counsels of 
man, and drove her out and away. . . . Even 

more fatal was the overthrow of woman’s position in 
Borne. Bead the terrible facts as stated by Gibbon, 
by Milman, and Sir Henry Maine, read and ponder 
them, and you will see the tremendous wrong that 
Christianity did to woman.” 

In this country, while the most illiterate and de¬ 
praved man is clothed with the rights of a sovereign, 
the noblest women is a slave; and from the Bible, 
priests and politicians have procured the chains that 
hold her in subjection. 

UNKINDNESS TO CHILDREN. 

I refuse to accept the Bible as an infallible moral 
guide, because its teachings respecting the treatment 
of children are cruel and unjust. 

It advocates the use of corporal punishment for 
children. 

“ Thou shalt beat him with the rod ” (Prov. xxiii, 
14). 

“Withhold not correction from the child: for if 
thou beatest him with the rod he shall not die ” (Ibid 
xxiii, 13). 


BIBLE MORALS. 


29 


“ Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but 
the rod of correction shall drive it far from him ” 
(lb. xxii, 15). 

“ The rod and reproof give wisdom” (lb. xxix, 15). 

It advocates capital punishment for children: 

“ If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which 
will not obey the voice of his mother, and that when 
they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them; 
then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, 
and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and 
unto the gate of his place. . . . And all the men 

of the city shall stone him with stones that he die ” 
(Deut. xxi, 18,19, 21). 

It advocates the indiscriminate and merciless 
slaughter of little children: 

“ Their children also shall be dashed to pieces be¬ 
fore their eyes ” (Isa. xiii, 16). 

“ Samaria shall become desolate; for she hath re¬ 
belled against her God; they shall fall by the sword: 
their infants shall be dashed in pieces ” (Hosea xiii, 
16 ). 

“ As he [Elisha] was going up by the way, there 
came forth little children out of the city, and mocked 
him. . . . And he turned back, and looked on 

them, and cursed them in the name of the Lord. 
And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, 
and tare forty and two children of them ” (2 Kings 
ii, 23, 24). 

It advocates the punishment of children for the 
misdeeds of their parents. 

“ I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting 
the iniquity of the fathers upon the children ” (Ex. 
xx, 5). 

“ I will stir up the Medes against them, . , 


30 


BIBLE MORALS. 


their eye shall not spare children ” (Isa. xiii, 17, 18). 

“ I will also send wild beasts among you, which 
shall rob you of your children ” (Lev. xxvi, 22). 

David prays that the children of his adversaries 
may become vagabonds and beggars; and Jeremiah, 
that the children of his enemies may perish by famine. 

God kills Bath-sheba’s child: 

“ And the Lord struck the child that Uriah’s wife 
bore unto David, and it was very sick. . . . And 

it came to pass on the seventh day that the child 
died ” (2 Sam. xii, 15-18). 

Poor babe! tortured and murdered for its parents’ 
crime! 

CRUELTY TO ANIMALS. 

I refuse to accept the Bible as an infallible moral 
guide, because it sanctions and enjoins unkindness 
and cruelty to animals. 

Portions of the Old Testament, and particularly 
those relating to sacrifices, are calculated to foster a 
spirit of brutality, and a total disregard for animal 
life. God revels in the blood of the innocent. The 
offering of fruits made by Cain is rejected by him; 
the bloody sacrifice of Abel is accepted. 

Nearly the entire book of Leviticus is devoted to 
such laws as these: 

“ If he offer a lamb for his offering, then shall he 
offer it before the Lord. And he shall lay his hand 
upon the head of his offering, and kill it before the 
tabernacle of the congregation; and Aaron’s sons 
shall sprinkle the blood thereof round about upon 
the altar ” (Lev. iii, 7, 8). 

“ And if the burnt sacrifice for his offering to the 
Lord be of fowls, then he shall bring his offering of 
turtle-doves, or of young pigeons. And the priest 


I 


BIBLE MOHALS. 


31 


fchall bring it unto the the altar, and wring off his 
head, and burn it on the altar; and the blood thereof 
shall be wrung out at the side of the altar ” (Lev. i, 
14, 15). 

The minutest directions for conducting these 
bloody sacrifices come from the lips of Jehovah him¬ 
self, and are too brutal and disgusting to repeat. 

The number of animals sacrificed was incredible. 
At times whole herds were killed. On one occasion 
Asa sacrificed 700 oxen and 7,000 sheep. David 
made an offering of 1 ; 000 bullocks and 2,000 sheep. 
At the dedication of the temple, 142,000 domestic 
beasts were sacrificed by Solomon. 

And this wholesale slaughter of innocent animals, 
we are told, was highly pleasing to the Lord. But 

“ What was his high pleasure in 
The fumes of scorching flesh and smoking blood, 

To the pain of the bleating mothers, which 

Still yearned for their dead offspring? or the pangs 

Of the sad ignorant victim underneath 

The pious knife ? ” " — Byron. 

A God of mercy, it would seem, ought to protect 
the weaker orders of his creation; but the God of the 
Bible manifests an utter disregard for them. When 
the being created in his own image proved too true 
a copy, and he wished to destroy it, he sent a deluge, 
“and all flesh died that moved upon the earth.” To 
wreak his vengeance upon Pharaoh, he visited with 
disease and death his unoffending cattle. In times 
of war, he ordered his followers to “ slay both man 
an beast.” Saul’s great transgression, the chief 
cause of his dethronement and death, was that he 
saved alive some sheep and oxen instead of killing 
them as God desired. David and Joshua, God’s 


32 


BIBLE MORALS. 


favorite warriors, houghed the horses of their enemies, 
and, thus disabled, turned them loose to die. 

We teach a child that it is wrong to rob the nests 
of birds. It listens respectfully, then opens the 
Bible and reads: 

“ If a bird’s nest chance to be before thee in the 
way in any tree, or on the ground, whether they be 
young ones, or eggs, and the dam sitting upon the 
young, or upon the eggs, thou shalt not take the dam 
with the young; but thou shalt in any wise let the 
dam go, and take the young to thee ” (Deut. xxii, G, 7). 

Throughout Christendom “ man’s inhumanity to 
man” is only equaled by his cruelty to the inferior 
animals. The Buddhist, who has not the Bible for 
his guide, considers it a sin to harm the meanest 
creature. Even the savage kills only what he needs 
for food, or such as threaten him with danger. But 
the Christian, whose Bible gives him dominion over 
the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, maims 
and murders in pure wantonness, and after years of 
patient service, even turns his beast of burden out to 
die of hunger and neglect. 

For the sake of these dumb creatures, would that 
our world had less theology, and more humanity; 
had fewer Moodys, and more Henry Berghs! 

HUMAN SACRIFICES. 

I refuse to accept the Bible as an infallible moral 
guide, because it sanctions human sacrifices. 

“ No devoted thing, that a man shall devote unto 
the Lord of all that he hath, both of man and beast, 
and of the field of his possession, shall be sold or re¬ 
deemed; every devoted thing is most holy unto the 
Lord. None devoted, which shall be devoted of men, 


BIBLE MOEALS. 


33 


shall be redeemed; but shall surely be put to death” 
(Lev. xxvii, 28, 29). 

God commands Abraham to sacrifice his son: 

“ Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom 
thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; 
and offer him there for a burnt offering” (Gen. xxii, 2). 

The order was countermanded, but the perusal of 
this text has driven thousands to insanity and murder. 

That a famine may cease, David sacrifices the sons 
of Saul: 

“ Wherefore David said unto the Gibeonites, What 
shall I do for you ? and wherewith shall I make the 
atonement, that ye may bless the inheritance of the 
Lord? . . . And they answered the king, The 

man that consumed us, and devised against us. . . . 
Let seven men of his sons be delivered unto us, and 
we will hang them up unto the Lord. . . . And the 
king said, I will give them. And he delivered them 
unto the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged 
them in the hill before the Lord; and they fell all 
seven together, and were put to death in the days of 
harvest ” (2 Sam. xxi). 

The sacrifice, we are told, was accepted, and the 
famine ceased. 

The pathetic story of Jephthah’s daughter is fa¬ 
miliar to all of you. Jephthah is a warrior, and 
makes a vow, that if he is permitted to conquer the 
children of Ammon, upon his return the first that 
meets him at the door will be offered up for a 
burnt offering unto the Lord. He is successful; the 
children of Ammon are defeated. Upon his return 
the first to meet him is his daughter, an only child. 
He tells her of his vow. She prays for two brief 
months to live. Her prayer is granted, and at the 


34 


BIBLE MORALS. 


expiration of this time, the Bible tells us that Jeph- 
thah “ did with her according to the vow which he 
had vowed ” (Jud. xi, 2G-40). 

The celebrated Jewish commentator, Dr. Kalisch, 
while endeavoring to palliate, as far as possible, the 
crimes of his people, admits that human sacrifices 
were not uncommon among them: 

“ The fact stands indisputable that human sacri¬ 
fices offered to Jehovah were possible among the 
Hebrews long after the time of Moses, without meet¬ 
ing a check or censure from the teachers and lead¬ 
ers of the nation ” (Leviticus, part 1, p. 385). 

“One instance like that of Jephthah not only justi¬ 
fies, but necessitates, the influence of a general cus¬ 
tom. Pious men slaughtered human victims not to 
Moloch, nor to any other foreign deity, but to the 
national God, Jehovah ” (Ibid. p. 390). 

The church, having received the benefits of a sac¬ 
rificed God, deems human sacrifices no longer neces¬ 
sary. But what can be said of the church as a whole, 
cannot be said of all its individual members. Scarcely 
a year passes without the sacrifice of human beings 
by those who believe the Bible to be inspired, and 
who believe that what was right three thousand 
years ago is right to-day. 

Let me recall a half-forgotten scene. In a quiet 
village of New England live a pair whom nature 
meant for good, kind citizens. But they have be¬ 
come infatuated with the Bible. They believe it to 
be infallible. Day after day they pore over its pages. 
They dwell with especial interest upon the story of 
Abraham and Isaac, until at last they become im¬ 
pressed with the belief that they, too, are called upon 
to offer up their child. The fatal hour arrives. 


t 


BIBLE MOBALS. 


35 


Nerved for the cruel deed, they approach the bedside 
of their child, a sweet-faced, curly-haired girl of four. 
How placidly.she rests! Folded upon her breast are 
dimpled hands, white as the winter snow; curtained 
in slumber are eyes as mild as the summer sky. 
How beautiful! how pure ! We would risk our lives 
to save that pretty thing from harm. How dear, 
then, must she be to that father and that mother! 
She is their idol. But that idol is about to be sacri¬ 
ficed upon the altar of superstition. There they 
stand—the mother with a lamp in her hand, the 
father with a knife. They gaze for a moment upon 
their sleeping victim. Then the father lifts his arm 
and plunges the knife into the heart of his child ! A 
quiver—the blue eyes open, and cast a reproachful 
look upon the parent. The little lips exclaim, “ O 
papa!” and the sacrifice is made ! 

You say they were insane. Aye, but what made 
them insane ? And what, more than any other cause, 
is peopling our asylums with these unfortunate peo¬ 
ple ? The vain attempt to reconcile with reason the 
irreconcilable teachings of this book. 

CANNIBALISM. 

I refuse to accept the Bible as an infallible moral 
guide, because it teaches the horrible custom of can¬ 
nibalism. 

“ The fathers sha]l eat the sons in the midst of 
thee, and the sons shall eat their fathers ” (Ezek. v, 
10 .) 

“And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the 
flesh of your daughters shall ye eat ” (Lev. xxvi, 29). 

“And I will cause them to eat the flesh of their 
sons and the flesh of their daughters, and they shall 
eat every one the flesh of his friend ” (Jer. xix, 9). 


36 


BIBLE MORALS. 


“ And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, 
the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters. . . . 

So that the man that is tender among you, and very 
delicate, his eye shall be evil toward his brother, 
and toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the 
remnant of his children which he shall leave; so that 
he will not give to any of them of the flesh of his 
children whom he shall eat. . . . The tender and 

delicate woman among you, which would not advent¬ 
ure to set the sole of her foot upon the ground for 
delicateness and tenderness, her eye shall be evil 
toward the husband of her bosom, and toward her 
son, and toward her daughter, . . . for she shall 

eat them ” (Deut.'xxviii, 53-57). 

“The hands of the pitiful women have sodden 
[boiled] their own children ” (Lam. iv, 10). 

“ And the king said unto her, What aiieth thee ? 
And she answered, This woman said unto me, give 
thy son, that we may eat him to-day, and we will eat 
my son to-morrow. So we boiled my son, and did 
eat him. And I said unto her on the next day, Give 
thy son that we may eat him; and she hath hid her 
son ” (2 Kings vi, 28, 29). 

You will say that these were punishments inflicted 
upon these people for their sins. And you will have 
us believe that these punishments were just. Strange 
justice! a merciful God compelling a starving mother 
to kill and devour her own child! 

“ Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and 
drink his blood, ye have no life in you’' (John vi. 53). 

'The church perpetuates the idea, if not the practice, 
of cannibalism. The Christian takes a piece of bread, 
and tries to make himself and the world believe that 
he is eating the body of Christ; he takes a sup of 


BIBLE MORALS. 


37 


wine, and says, “This is Christ’s blood.” Your sacra¬ 
mental feast points to the time when savage priests 
gathered around the festal board and supped on hu¬ 
man flesh and blood. 

In the remote districts of Christian Russia, where 
the rays of our civilization have not yet penetrated 
the darkness of theology, where Bible morals are still 
supreme, we are told that even at the present time 
a more terribly real form attaches to this eucharistic 
ceremony. From Harper's Weekly, I quote as follows: 

“We hear of horrid sects at present in Russia, 
practicing cannibal and human sacrifices with rites 
almost more devilish than any recorded in history. 
‘The communism of the flesh of the Lamb,’ and ‘the 
communism of the blood of the Lamb/ really seem 
to have been invented by the lowest demons of the 
bottomless pit. The subject is too revolting to be 
pursued in detail; it is enough to say that an infant 
seven days old is bandaged over the eyes, stretched 
over a dish, and a silver spoon thrust into the side so 
as to pierce the heart! The elect suck tne child’s 
blood—that is ‘the blood of the Lamb!’ Tii9 body 
is left to dry up in another dish full of sage, then 
crushed into powder and eaten—that is ‘ the flesh of 
the Lamb!’” 

WITCHCRAFT. 

I refuse to accept the Bible as an infallible moral 
guide, because it recognizes as a verity the delusion 
of witchcraft and punishes with death its victims. 

The God that inspired the account of Saul’s in¬ 
terview with the witch of Endor, was as thorough a 
believer in witchcraft as the most superstitious crone 
of the middle ages. 

Manasseh “used enchantments, and used witch- 


38 


BIBLE MOBALS. 


craft, and dealt with a familiar spirit, and with 
wizards” (2 Chron. xxxiii, 6). 

Isaiah speaks of “ wizards that peep and mutter ” 
(Isa. viii, 19). 

The decline in the belief of wizards and witches 
denotes a decline of faith in the Bible. Until a very 
recent period, those who professed to believe in the 
divinity of the Bible, also professed to believe in the 
reality of witchcraft. “Giving up witchcraft,” says 
John Wesley, “ is, in effect, giving up the Bible ” 
(Journal, 1768). 

“ Thou shall not suffer a witch to live ” (Ex. xxii, 
18). 

Oh! that I could bring to view the suffering and 
death this text has caused ! Nearly a million women 
have died because of it: 1,000 were burned at Como 
in one year; 500 at Geneva in three months; 7,000 
died at Treves; 50,000 were sentenced to death dur¬ 
ing the reign of Francis I.; 100,000 perished in Ger¬ 
many; 30,000 were executed in England; 16,000 in 
Scotland—all because the Bible says, “ Thou shalt not 
suffer a witch to live.” 

Four hundred were burned at Toulouse in one 
day. Think of it 1 Four hundred women—guilty of 
no crime, save that which exists in the diseased im¬ 
aginations of their accusers—four hundred mothers, 
wives, and daughters taken out upon the public 
square, chained to posts, the fagots piled around 
them, and burned to death! See them writhing in 
the flames—listen to their piteous shrieks. Four 
hundred voices raised in one wild chorus of agony! 
And all because the Bible says, “ Thou shalt not suffer 
a witch to live.” 

Only five years ago, in the province of Novgorod, 


BIBLE MORALS. 


39 


Russia, a woman wa3 burnt for witchcraft. Agrafena 
was a soldier’s widow, and possessed of more than 
ordinary gifts of mind. But ignorance and super¬ 
stition prevailed around her. Every strange occur¬ 
rence, every disease that could not be accounted for, 
was the result of witchcraft. One day a farmer’s 
daughter was seized with a fit of epilepsy, and in her 
paroxysms of pain she chanced to breathe the name 
of Agrafena. This was enough; Agrafena was a 
witch. A mob was raised and led to the widow’s 
dwelling. They called her to the door, parleyed 
with her a moment, then thrust her back into the 
house, fastened its doors, and set it on fire. And 
while it was burning, this mob, led by Christian 
priests, stood around it, singing praises to God— 
their strains blended with the shrieks of this dying 
woman—dying because the Bible says, “ Thou shalt 
not suffer a witch to live.” 

And in our own America the blighting influence of 
this delusion and this brutal statute has been felt. 
With the soil of our republic is mingled the dust of 
murdered women—murdered because the Bible says, 
“Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” 

SLAVERY. 

I refuse to accept the Bible as an infallible moral 
guide, because it sanctions the infamous crime of hu¬ 
man slavery. 

“ Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids, which 
thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are 
round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and 
bondmaids. Moreover, of the children of the stran¬ 
gers that do sojourn among you; of them shall ye 
buy, and of their families that are with you, which 
they beget in your land; and they shall be your pos- 


40 


BIBLE MOllALS. 

session. And ye shall take them as an inheritance 
for your children after you, to inherit them for a pos¬ 
session; they shall be your bondmen forever ” (Lev. 
xxv, 44-46). 

In certain cases they were even permitted to en¬ 
slave the members of their own race. 

“ If thou buy a Hebrew servant, six years he shall 
serve; and in the seventh he shall go out free for 
nothing. If he came in by himself, he shall go out 
by himself; if he were married, then his wife shall 
go out with him. If his master have given him a 
wife, and she have borne him sons or daughters, the 
wife and her children shall be her master’s and he 
shall go out by himself ” (Ex. xxi, 2-4). 

If he desires his liberty, he must desert his wife 
and little ones. To become a freeman, he must be¬ 
come an exile. v 

“ And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my 
master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out 
free; then his master shall bring him unto the 
judges; he shall also bring him unto the door, or 
unto the door-post; and his master shall bore his ears 
through with an awl; and he shall serve him forever ” 
(Ex. xxi, 5, 6). 

Let me cite one of the laws of the Bible relative to 
the treatment of slaves—a law which demons would 
blush to indorse, but which a merciful (?) God en¬ 
acted for the guidance of his children. 

“ If a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a 
rod, and he die under his hand, he shall be • surely 
punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or 
two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money” 
(Ex. xxi, 20, 21). 

Here a master may brutally beat his slave, and if 


BIBLE MOIIALS. 


41 


that slave linger in the agonies of death for a day or 
two before dying, he shall not be punished, because 
the slave “ is his money.” 

Nor *is it the Jewish scriptures alone which sanc¬ 
tion slavery. The Christian scriptures are not less 
emphatic in their indorsement of it. 

“Let as many servants as are under the yoke 
count their own masters worthy of all honor” (1 
Tim. vi, 1). 

“ Exhort servants to be obedient unto their mas¬ 
ters ” (Titus ii, 9). 

“ Servants, be obedient to them that are your mas¬ 
ters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling ” 
(Eph. vi, 5). 

“ Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; 
not only to the good and gentle, but also to the 
froward” (1 Pet. ii, 18). 

It may be urged that the term “ servant ” here re¬ 
fers to a hired servant. Not so; wherever the word 
“ servant ” occurs in the New Testament, it means 
slave in its worst sense. 

The Fugitive Slave law, which made us a nation 
of kidnappers, derived its authority from the New 
Testament. Paul had established a precedent by re¬ 
turning a slave to his master. 

It was no easy task to convince the Bible mor¬ 
alist that slavery was wrong. When the French 
Revolutionists rejected the Bible, they abolished 
slavery in the colonies. When the church regained 
control of the government, the Bible came back, and 
with it slavery. When Clarkson’s bill for the aboli¬ 
tion of slavery was before Parliament, Lord Chancel¬ 
lor Thurlow characterized it as a “miserable and 
contemptible bill,” and “contrary to the word of 


42 


BIBLE MORALS. 


God.” The most zealous defenders of slavery in this 
country were theologians. 

The Rev. E. D. Simons, professor in Macon Col¬ 
lege, Ga., said: “These extracts from holy writ un¬ 
equivocally assert the right of property in slaves.” 

The Rev. R. Furman, D.D., of South Carolina, said: 
“ The right of holding slaves is clearly established in 
the holy scriptures, both by precept and example.” 

Rev. Thomas Witherspoon, of Alabama, said: “ I 
draw my warrant from the scriptures of the Old and 
New Testament to hold the slave in bondage.” 

Said the Rev. Mr. Crawder, of Virginia: “ Slavery 
is not only countenanced, permitted, and regulated 
by the Bible, but it was positively instituted by God 
. himself.” 

You say that this is the testimony of interested 
parties, that the South was interested in perpetuating 
slavery. True, but where did your Northern theolo¬ 
gians stand? 

Rev. Dr. Wilbur Fisk, president of Wesleyan Uni¬ 
versity, thus wrote: “The New Testament enjoins 
obedience upon the slave as an obligation due to a 
present rightful authority.” 

Rev. Moses Stuart, of Andover, said: “The pre¬ 
cepts of the New Testament respecting the demeanor 
of slaves and their masters beyond all question recog¬ 
nize the existence of slavery.” 

Professor Hodge, of Princeton, said: “The savior 
found it around him, the apostles met with it in Asia, 
Greece, and Italy. How did they treat it ? Not by 
denunciation of slaveholding as necessarily sinful.” 

Said the Rev. Dr. Taylor, principal of the theolog¬ 
ical department of Yale College: “ I have no doubt 


BIBLE MORALS. 


43 


that if Jesus Christ were now on earth, he would, 
under certain circumstances, become a slaveholder.” 

Slavery flourished on this continent because the 
Bible taught that it was lawful and just. To oppose 
slavery was to oppose the plainest teachings of this 
book. The Abolition movement was an Infidel move¬ 
ment. The Emancipation Proclamation was a nulli¬ 
fication of “ God’s law.” The great Rebellion was a 
contest between Bible morality and natural morality. 
The latter triumphed, but the conflict filled half a 
million graves, brought grief to many million hearts, 
and covered the land with desolation. 

And this advocate of slavery is the idol Protestants 
worship; this is the book they wish to become the 
law of. our land; this is the moral guide they wish to 
place in our public schools! In the name of those 
who died for the freedom of their fellow-men; in the 
name of those made childless, fatherless, and com¬ 
panionless by this cruel strife; in the name of those 
whose backs still bear the scars of the master’s lash; 
in the name of human liberty, I protest against this 
retrogressive movement! 

POLYGAMY. 

I refuse to accept the Bible as an infallible moral 
guide, because it sanctions polygamy. 

The Mosaic law provides that “ if a man have two 
wives, one beloved, another hated,” he shall not ig¬ 
nore the legal rights of the hated wife’s children 
(Deut. xxi, 15-17). This statute recognizes both the 
existence and the validity of the institution. 

Another statute (Deut. xxv, 5) provides that if a 
man die, his surviving brother shall become the hus¬ 
band of his widow, and this regardless as to whether 
the brother be married or single. 


44 


BIBLE MORALS. 


The first eighteen verses of the eighteenth chapter 
of Leviticus are devoted to what is termed “ unlaw¬ 
ful marriages.” Here polygamy is recognized and 
regulated to the extent of prohibiting a man from 
marrying the sister,of a living wife. 

But there is one atatute which places the validity 
of this institution, so far as the Bible is concerned, 
beyond all controversy. Deut. xxiii, 2, declares that 
no illegitimate child shall enter into the congrega¬ 
tion of the Lord, even up to the tenth generation. 
Now, polygamy was either lawful or unlawful. If 
unlawful, then the children of polygamists tvere ille¬ 
gitimate children, and disqualified for the sanctuary. 
But the children of polygamists were not thus dis¬ 
qualified. The founders of the twelve tribes of Israel 
were all children of a polygamist. 

The most renowned Bible characters were polyga¬ 
mists. Abraham had two wives, and when he died 
the Lord said, “ Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept 
my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my 
laws” (Gen. xxvi, 5). 

Jacob was a polygamist, and after he had secured 
four wives God blessed him and said, “ Be fruitful 
and multiply ” (Gen. xxxv, 11). 

Gideon had “many wives” (Jud. viii, 30), and it 
was to him an angel came and said, “ The Lord is 
with thee” (Jud. vi, 12). 

David had nearly a score of wives and concubines, 
and “David was a man after God’s own heart.” 
“ David did right in the eyes of the Lord.” God 
himself said to David, “ I delivered thee out of the 
hands of Saul; and I gave thee thy master’s house 
and thy master’s wives ” (2 Sam. xii, 7, 8). 

“ And God gave Solomon wisdom and understand- 


BIBLE MORLAS. 45 

ing exceeding much, and largeness of heart suf¬ 
ficient to hold a thousand wives and concubines. 

It is true the primitive Christians did not generally 
adopt polygamy. And why ? Because pagan Greece 
had taught them better. It was to her, and not to 
their scriptures, that they were indebted for the 
monogamic system of marriage. Neither did the 
Roman Catholic church sustain polygamy, but it did 
sustain a system of concubinage which was certainly 
as bad. For centuries the keeping of concubines 
was almost universal among the Catholic clergy, one 
abbot keeping no less than seventy. 

The founders of the Protestant church, however, 
accepting the Bible as their guide, attaching to it a 
degree of authority which had never been attached 
to it before, were candid and consistent enough to 
admit the validity of the institution. Referring to 
this subject, Sir William Hamilton, a Christian and a 
Protestant, says: 

“As to polygamy in particular, which not only 
Luther, Melancthon, and Bucer, the three leaders of 
the German Reformation, speculatively adopted, but 
to which above a dozen distinguished divines among 
the reformers stood formally committed” (Discussions 
on Philosophy and Literature). 

Speaking of Luther and Melancthon, Hamilton 
says: 

“ They had both promulgated opinions in favor of 
polygamy, to the extent of vindicating to the spirit¬ 
ual minister a right of private dispensation, and to 
the temporal magistrate the right of establishing the 
practice if he chose by public law ” (Ibid). 

In accordance with these views, John of Ley don, a 
zealous Protestant, established polygamy at Munster, 


46 


BIBLE MORALS. 


and murdered, or drove from their homes, all who 
dared to oppose the odious custom. Other Protest¬ 
ants followed his example. 

On the 19th of December, 1539, at Wittenberg, 
Luther and Melancthon drew up the famous “ Con¬ 
silium,” authorizing the landgrave, Phillip of Hesse, 
to have a plurality of wives. This instrument bears 
the signatures of Martin Luther, Philip Melancthon, 
Martin Bucer, Dionysius Melander, John Lening, 
Antony Corvinus, Adam Kraft, Justus Winther, and 
Balthasar Baida, nine of the leading Protestant 
divines of Germany. 

It is a well-known fact that Luther advised Henry 
VIII. to adopt polygamy in his case; but by divorc¬ 
ing two wives, and murdering two more, the founder 
of the English church avoided it. 

The advocacy of polygamy by the chief reformers 
prevented Ferdinand I. from declaring for the 
Beformation. The German princes, too, generally > 
opposed it; and this opposition, coupled with the 
fact that the most licentious sects espoused it, finally 
caused a reaction in favor of monogamy. 

Protestants, it ill becomes you to point the finger 
of scorn at the Mormons of IJtah. Yet with charac¬ 
teristic consistency, you are demanding the suppres¬ 
sion of polygamy in the territories, while at the 
same time you are endeavoring to have the whole 
country accept as infallible authority, a book which 
sanctions the pernicious custom. Make the Bible 
the fundamental law of the land, a3 you demand, and 
polygamy will become, in theory at least, a national 
instead of a local institution. 


BIBLE MORALS. 


47 


INTEMPERANCE. 

I refuse to accept the Bible as an infallible moral 
guide, because it fosters the evil of intemperance. 

While the sacred books of Buddhists and Moham¬ 
medans, by forbidding the use of intoxicating drinks, 
have contributed to make drunkenness among these 
people disreputable and rare, the Bible, by encour¬ 
aging their use, has made intemperance in Christian 
countries frightfully prevalent, and almost respectable. 

“ Thou shalt bestow that money for whatsoever 
thy soul lusteth after, for oxen, or for sheep, or for 
wine, or for strong drink” (Deut. xiv, 26). 

“Give strong drink unto him that is ready to 
perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts. 
Let him drink and forget his poverty, and remember 
his misery no more ” (Prov. xxxi, 6, 7). 

“ Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for 
thy stomach’s sake ” (1 Tim. v, 23). 

“ Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink 
thy wine with a merry heart; for God now accepteth 
thy works ” (Ecles. ix, 7). 

“ They shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine 
thereof” (Amos ix, 14). 

“Wine that maketh glad the heart of man” (Ps. 
civ, 15). 

“Wine which cheereth God and man” (Jud. ix, 13). 

“ Destroy it not, for a blessing it is.” 

Will that wing of the Prohibition army which has 
adopted the Bible as its text-book on temperance, in¬ 
scribe the above texts upon its banner ? 

Jehovah is represented as being particularly fond 
of strong drink. 

“ In the holy place shalt thou cause the strong 


48 


BIBLE MORALS. 


wine to be poured unto the Lord for a drink offer¬ 
ing ” (Num. xxviii, 7). 

One of the most direful calamities was a wine 
famine. . 

“Awake ye drunkards, and weep; and howl, all ye 
drinkers of wine, because of the new wine; for it is 
cut off from your mouth. . . The drink offering 
is cut off from the house of the Lord; the priests, the 
Lord’s ministers, mourn. . . Gird yourselves and 

lament, ye priests; howl, ye ministers of the altar; 
come, lie all night in sackcloth, ye ministers of my 
God; for . . the drink offering is withholden 

from the house of your God” (Joel, i, 5, 9, 13). 

God’s peculiar favorites had a weakness for wine. 
When he drowned the world’s inhabitants, he saved 
Noah, knowing that as soon as the waters subsided, 
he would plant a vineyard, make wine, and become 
intoxicated. When Sodom was destroyed, the only 
righteous man he found was drunken Lot. When 
David made his celebrated feast in honor of the 
Lord, he gave to every man and woman a flagon of 
wine. He kept some for himself, and so merry did 
his heart become, that he “ danced before the Lord 
with all his might.” 

Thus joyously sings Solomon: “I have drunk my 
wine with my milk [milk punch]; eat, O friends, 
drink, yea, drink abundantly.” In the morning he 
sings another song: “Open to me, . . . my 

love, . . . for my head is filled with dew.” How 

many a wayward fellow, like Solomon, has risen from 
the gutter, sorrowfully wended his way home, and 
serenaded his sleeping spouse with that same melody! 

God commanded Jeremiah to tempt with wine 
those who abstained from its use: 


BIBLE MORALS. 


49 


“ Go unto the house of the Rechabites, and speak 
with them, and bring them into the house of the Lord, 
into one of the chambers, and give them wine to 
drink ” (Jer. xxxv, 2). 

Christ spoke as follows: 

“ John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor 
drinking wine. . . . The Son of Man is come 

eating and drinking; and ye say, Behold a gluttonous 
man, and a winebibber ” (Luke vii, 33, 34). 

This censure was evidently not unmerited. The 
first act in Christ’s ministerial career was to manu¬ 
facture three barrels of wine for a wedding feast; his 
last recorded act was a benediction upon the wine 
cup. 

Theology being no longer in demand, the Protest¬ 
ant clergy, contrary to the teachings of the Bible and 
the traditions of the church, now find it popular and 
profitable to espouse the cause of temperance. But 
in championing one rational virtue they employ two 
Christian vices, hypocrisy and intolerance. The most 
inconsistent, the most uncharitable opponents of the 
liquor traffic to-day, are these fresh converts, who pro¬ 
fess to be doing their master’s will, and who claim 
that his word is the advocate of total abstinence and 
prohibitory laws. With fierce invective they declaim 
against the old god Bacchus, yet every anathema 
they hurl at him wiil apply with equal justice to 
their God and Christ. 

POVERTY AND VAGRANCY. 

I refuse to accept the Bible as an infallible moral 
guide, because it encourages poverty and vagrancy. 

Jesus Christ was the panegyrist of poverty and the 
promoter of vagrancy: 


50 


BIBLE MORALS. 


“ Blessed be ye poor ” (Luke vi, 20). 

“ But woe unto you that are rich ” (Luke vi, 24). • 

“ A rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom 
of heaven ” (Matt, xix, 23). 

,J It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of 
a needle than for a rich man to enter into the king¬ 
dom of God ” (Mark x, 25). 

“ Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth ” 
(Matt, vi, 19). 

When the judicious use of wealth is promotion of 
human happiness, and when poverty is the source of 
so much misery and crime, such teachings are not 
only false, but pernicious. 

“ Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, 
or what ye shall drink; nor yet for ycur body what 
ye shall put on. . . . Behold the fowls of the air: 

for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather 
into barns. . . . And why take ye thought for 

raiment ? Consider the lilies of the field, how they 
grow; they toil not, neither do they spin. . . . 

Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we 
eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall 
we be clothed ? . . . The morrow shall take 

thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the 
day is the evil thereof” (Matt, vi, 25-34) 

To-day our land is infested with an army of tramps. 
Their skirmishers are deployed along every highway; 
their points of attack are the kitchen and the hay¬ 
mow; their text-book on military science is the Ser¬ 
mon on the Mount. “ They sow not, neither do they 
reap.” “ They toil not, neither do they spin.” They 
beg and steal. These are Christ’s followers—the 
truest followers he has on earth to-day. 

In the streets of our cities we see men clad in rags, 


BIBLE MOliALS. 


51 


idle, and drunken, and penniless. We see them ar¬ 
rested for vagrancy, thru st into prison, or made to 
labor for their bread. These are Christ’s martyrs. 

Poor tramp and vagrant! How you are “perse¬ 
cuted for righteousness’ sake !” Men despise you; 
the farmer drives you from his door; the social econ¬ 
omist racks his brains to devise a plan for your sup¬ 
pression; state governments legislate against you; 
everywhere you are treated as an outcast—and all 
because, taking the Bible for your guide, you en¬ 
deavor faithfully to conform to its teachings. 

IGNORANCE AND IDIOCY. 

I refuse to accept the Bible as an infallible moral 
guide, because it condemns the use of reason and 
the acquisition of knowledge. 

For partaking of the fruit of the tree of knowl¬ 
edge, our parents were banished from Paradise; for 
obeying the dictates of reason, we are consigned to 
hell. 

Education, physical, moral, and intellectual, is dis¬ 
couraged. 

Bodily exercise profiteth little.— Paul. 

Be not righteous overmuch.— Solomon. 

Neither make thyself over wise.— Ibid. 

Choice mottoes, the above, to hang up on the walls 
of the school-room! 

“ Beware lest any man spoil you through philoso¬ 
phy ” (Col. ii, 8). 

“Knowledge puffeth up” (1 Cor. viii, 1). 

“Thy wisdom and thy knowledge it hath per¬ 
verted thee’ (Isa. xlvii, 10). 

“ I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know 
madness and folly; I perceived that this also is vexa- 


52 


BIBLE MORALS. 


tion of spirit. For in much wisdom is much grief; 
and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow ” 
(Ecles. i, 17, 18). 

The Bible, and the religion emanating from it, are 
the fruitful parents of idiocy. They demand a sacra- 
fice of the very attribute which exalts the man of 
sense above the idiot; they bid him pluck out the 
eyes of Reason, and in their place insert the sightless 
balls of Faith. 

“ Reason should be destroyed in all Christians,” says 
Luther (L. Ungedr. Fred. Bru., p. 106). 

“ One destitute of reason,” is a phrase employed by 
Webster to define the word “fool.” 

“We are fools for Christ’s sake,” exclaims Paul 
(1 Cor. iv, 10). 

OBSCENITY. 

I refuse to accept the Bible as an infallible moral 
guide, and protest against its being placed in the 
hands of the young, because its pages are defiled 
with obscenity. 

Aside from thousands of coarse and vulgar expres¬ 
sions contained in it, there are at least a hundred 
passages so obscene that their appearance in any 
other book would exclude that book from the mails, 
and send its publisher to prison. There are entire 
chapters, -such as the thirty-eighth chapter of Genesis, 
that reek with obscenity from beginning to end. 

In proof of the charge of obscenity, I refer you to 
the following: Isaiah xxxvi, 12; Ezek. iv, 12-15; Gen. 
xix, 30-36; xxx, 1-16; xxxviii; 2 Rings xviii, 27; 
Lev. xv, 16-33; Job xl, 16, 17; 1 Kings xiv, 10; 
Isaiah hi, 17. 

That portions of the Bible are obscene, and unfit 
to be read, is admitted even by Christians. Noah 


BIBLE MORALS. 


53 


Webster, a Protestant, edited an expurgated edition 
of the Bible. In vindication of his work, he says: 

“ Many passages are expressed in language which 
decency forbids to be repeated in families and in 
the pulpit.” 

The Kev. Father Maguire, Catholic, in his debate 
with the Bev. Mr. Greg, at Dublin, gave utterance 
to the following: 

“I beg of you not to continue such a practice; it 
is disreputable. I will ask Mr. Greg a question, and 
I beg of you, my brethren of the Protestant church, 
to bear this in mind, I will ask him if he dare to take 
up the Bible and read from the book of Genesis the 
fact of Onan—I ask him will he read that? Will he 
read the fact relative to Lot and his two daughters ? 
Will he read these and many other passages which 
I could point out to him in the Holy Bible, which I 
would not take one thousand guineas, nay, all the 
money in the world, and read tiiem here to-day ?” 

Bichard Lalor Shiel, M.P., and privy counselor to 
the queen, thus wrote: 

“ Part of the holy writings consist of history, and 
the narration of facts of a kind that cannot be men¬ 
tioned in the presence of a virtuous woman without 
exciting horror. Snail a woman be permitted to read 
in her chamber what she would tremble to hear at 
her domestic board ? Shall she con over and re¬ 
volve what she would rather die than utter ?” 

And if unfit for the perusal of matured woman, 
shall innocent childhood be polluted with these vile, 
indecent tales ? 


54 


BIBLE MORALS. 


CONCLUSION. 

Here are twenty crimes and vices sanctioned by 
the Bible. Scattering this book broadcast over the 
land, making it the chief text-book of the Sunday- 
school, and, above all, placing it in our public schools, 
and compelling our youth to accept it as infallible 
authority, is a monstrous wrong; and you who advo¬ 
cate it are the enemies of virtue and the promoters 
of vice. There are within the lids of this Bible a 
hundred chapters sanctioning the bloodiest deeds in 
all the annals of crime; and this is the book you wish 
to place in the hands of our sons! There are within 
this Bible a hundred chapters which no modest 
woman can read without her cheek becoming tinged 
with the blush of shame; and this is the book you 
wish to place in the hands of our daughters! If you 
delight to feast upon such carrion, you have the right 
to do so; but you have no right to thrust it down the 
throats of your neighbors. As a Liberal, I concede 
to the Protestant cuckoo the right to propagate her 
species; but I protest against her laying her eggs in 
the secular nest, and having them hatched by the 
state. 

I affirm that the Bible does not present an infalli¬ 
ble moral standard, and I have given a score of valid 
reasons why it does not. I expect the defenders of 
this book to complete the task that I have here essayed. 
They will claim that the Bible is opposed to crime. 
They will, no doubt, cite numerous passages in con¬ 
firmation of this claim. Let them do this. Then 
place the result of our labors side by side. This will 
demonstrate what the nature and limits of my dis¬ 
course have precluded me from doing; and that is, 
that the Bible abounds with teachings that conflict. 


BIBLE MORALS. 


55 


This fact established, the dogma of its infallibility 
must fall. 

You may contend that I mistake the meaning of 
what I have quoted from this book. But the lan¬ 
guage is too plain to be mistaken. Do not tell me 
that it states one thing and means another. This is, 
you claim, the word of your God. Is your God 
wanting in candor ? 

So far as the Bible is concerned, the criminal has 
as much to support the justness of his crime as the 
Christian has to sustain the truthfulness of his creed. 
The various dogmas of the church are not upheld by 
stronger scripture proofs than have been advanced 
in justification of the crimes that I have named. The 
doctrine of immortality is supported by the New 
Testament, and opposed by the Old. Christians ac¬ 
cept the teachings of the former, and stigmatize as 
beasts those who accept the teachings of the latter. 
The dogma of endless punishment is supported at the 
most by but few texts. The Universalists adduce 
two hundred texts disproving it. Yet the doctrine 
of endless punishment is orthodox, and Universalism 
is the rankest heresy. The Bible teaches a simple 
monotheism. There is but one passage that clearly 
teaches the doctrine of the trinity, and this passage, 
it is admitted, is an interpolation. Yet in the Chris¬ 
tian Confession of Faith, this trinitarian dogma has 
been written in letters of blood. 

That great and good men have commended the 
Bible as a moral guide is true. It is a common prac¬ 
tice to parade these commendations before the world. 
But the testimonials of these men are, for the most 
part, not the result of careful reading and research. 
They have been inspired by the teachings of child- 


56 


BIBLE MOIiALS. 


hood, by the popular sentiment that prevails around 
them, or by a perusal of only the choicest portions of 
this book. 

The Bible moralist would have us believe that from- 
his book our morality has been derived; that God is 
the author, and the Bible the revelation and sole re¬ 
pository of our moral laws. Poor, credulous slave of 
superstition, it is not from Gods and Bibles that 
these laws have come. 

“Not in the way assumed by our dogmatic teachers 
has the morality of human nature been propped up. 
The power that has molded us thus far has worked 
with stern tools upon a rigid stuff. . . . That 

power did not work with delusions, nor will it stay 
its hands when such are removed. Facts rather than 
dogmas have been its ministers—hunger, shame, 
pride, love, hate, terror, awe—such were the forces, 
the interaction and adjustment of which during the 
immeasurable ages of his development wove the 
triplex web of man’s physical, intellectual, and moral 
nature, and such are the forces that will be effectual 
to the end ” (Tyndall). 

Accepting the Bible—not for what it has been 
claimed to be, the word of God, but for what it is, 
the work of man—I can excuse in a degree the crude 
ideas of right and wrong, and the laxity of morals 
that prevailed among the people whose history it 
records. The age in which they lived, the circum¬ 
stances that surrounded them, must palliate, to some 
extent, their deeds and theories. But it is humiliat¬ 
ing to think that in these better times, illuminated 
by the light of a glorious civilization, there are those 
who spurn the robes of virtue that Reason in the loom 


BIBLE MOllALS. 


57 


of grave Experience has woven, and who from the 
dark and musty closets of the past drag forth for use 
the soiled and blood-stained garments that barbari¬ 
ans wore. 


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Why Don’t God Kill the Devil? A Series of Essays 

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TRUTH SEEKER CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 


13 


TRUTH SEEKER TRACTS. 
[Please Order by Number.] 

dents. 

1 Discussion on Prayer. Bennett and others. 8 

7 The Story of Creation. Bennett. ° 

8 The Old Snake Story. “ “ 

9 The Story of the Flood. “ ” 

10 The Plagues of Egypt. “ * 

11 Korah, Datham, and Abiram. Bennett. " 

12 Balaam and his Ass. “ “ 

13 Arraignment of Priestcraft. “ ° 

14 Old Abe and Little Ike. Syphers. ° 

15 Come to Dinner. “ . " 

16 Fog Horn Documents. “ " 

17 The Devil Still Ahead. “ * 

18 Slipped Up Again. “ . 1 

19 Joshua Stopping the Sun and Moon. Bennett. J 

20 Samson and his Exploits. Bennett. £ 

21 The Great Wrestling Match. “ . 4 

22 Discussion with Elder Shelton. Bennett. l u 

23 Reply to Elder Shelton’s Fourth Letter. D. M. Bennett. 8 

24 Christians at Work. Wm. McDonnell. 5 

25 Discussion with George Snode. Bennett. ° 

26 Underwood’s Prayer. ... * 

27 Honest Questions and Honest Answers. Bennett. j? 

28 Alessandro di Cagliostro. C. Sotheran... ^ 

29 Paine Hall Dedication Address. Underwood. ® 

30 Woman’s Rights and Man’s Wrongs. Syphers.. * 

31 Gods and God-Houses. ; . 

32 The Gods of Superstition and the God of the Universe. 

Bennett. ® 

33 What has Christianity Done? Preston. 3 

34 Tribute to Thomas Paine. 2 

35 Moving the Ark. Bennett.. 2 

36 Bennett’s Prayer to the Devil. 2 

37 Short Sermon. Rev. Theologicus, D.D. 2 

38 Christianity not a Moral System. X.Y.Z. 2 

39 The True Saint, S. P. Putnam. * 

40 Bible of Nature versus the Bible of Men. John Syphers. 2 

41 Our Ecclesiastical Gentry. Bennett. 1 

• c 2 Elijah the Tishbite. “ .. 3 

43 Christianity a Borrowed System. “ .. . 3 

44 Design Argument Refuted. Underwood. 3 

45 Elisha the Prophet. Bennett. 3 

46 Did Jesus Really Exist? “ .. i 

47 Cruelty and Credulity of the Human Race. Dr. Daniel 

Arter. .. 











































14 TRUTH SEEKER CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 

48 Freethought in the West. G-. L. Henderson. 5 

49 Sensible Conclusions. E. E. Guild. 5 

50 Jonah and the Big Fish. Bennett. 3 

51 Sixteen Truth Seeker Leaflets. No. 1. 5 

52 Marples-Underwood Debate. Underwood. 

53 Questions for Bible Worshipers. “ . 2 

54 An Open Letter to Jesus Christ. Bennett. 

55 The Bible God Disjjroved by Nature. W. E. Coleman. 8 

56 Bible Contradictions. 1 

57 Jesus not a Perfect Character. Underwood. 2 

58 Prophecies. Underwood. 2 

59 Bible Prophecies Concerning Babylon. Underwood.... 2 

60 Ezekiel’s Prophecies Concerning Tyre. “ 2 

61 History of the Devil. Isaac Paden.*. 5 

62 The Jews and their God. 10 

63 The Devil’s Due-Bills. John Syphers. 3 

64 The Ills we Endure—Their Cause and Cure. Bennett.. 5 

65 Short Sermon No. 2. Bev. Theologicus, D.D. 2 

66 God Idea in History. H. B. Brown. 2 

67 Sixteen Truth Seeker Leaflets. No. 2. 5 

68 Ruth’s Idea of Heaven and Mine. Susan H. Wixon.... 2 

69 Missionaries. Mrs. E. D. Slenker. 2 

70 Vicarious Atonement. J. S. Lyon. 3 

71 Paine’s Anniversary. C. A. Codman. 2 

72 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego. Bennett... 2 

73 Foundations. John Syphers. 2 

74 Daniel in the Lion’s Den. Bennett. 2 

75 An Hour with the Devil. “ 10 

76 Reply to Erastus F. Brown. D. M. Bennett. 3 

77 The Fear of Death. D. M. Bennett.... 5 

78 Christmas and Cristianity. D. M. Bennett. 5 

79 The Relationship of Jesus, Jehovah, and the Virgin 

Mary W. E. Coleman. 2 

80 Address on Paine’s 139th Birthday. Bennett. 5 

81 Hereafter, or the Half-way House. Syphers. 2 

82 Christian Courtesy. D. M. Bennett. 1 

83 Revivalism Examined. Dr. A. G. Humphrey. 5 

84 Moody’s Sermon on Hell. Rev. J. P. Hopps, London. . 2 

85 Matter, Motion, Life, and Mind. Bennett. 10 

86 An Inquiry About God’s Sons. D. M. Bennett.] 2 

87 Freethought Judge by its Fruits. Underwood. 1 

88 David, God’s Peculiar Favorite. E. D. Slenker . 2 

89 Logic of Prayer. Charles Stephenson. 3 

90 Biblo-Mania. Otto Cordates. 2 

91 Our Ideas of God. B. F. Underwood. 4 

92 The Bible; is it Divinely Inspired? Dr. D. Arter.' |... * 3 

93 Obtaining Pardon for Sins. Hudson Tuttle.!’.!*.[ 1 

94 The New Raven. Will Cooper. 5 

95 Jesus Christ. Bennett. 10 

96 Icliabod Crane Papers. 10 















































TRUTH SEEKER CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 15 

97 Special Providences. W. S. Bell. 2 

98 Snakes. Mrs E. D. Slenker. 2 

99 Do the Works of Nature Prove a Creator? Sciota. 2 

100 140tli Anniversary of Thomas Paine’s Birthday. Bennett 

etals . 5 

102 The Old Keligion and the New. W. S. Bell. 2 

103 Does the Biblo Teach us all we Know? Bennett...... 1 

104 Evolution of Israel’s God. A. L. Bawson. 10 

105 Decadence of Christianity. Capphro. 2 

106 Franklin, Washington, and Jefferson Unbelievers. Ben¬ 

nett . 2 

107 The Safe Side. H. B. Brown.'. 5 

108 The Holy Bible a Historical Humbug. Preston. 2 

110 Invocation to the Universe. Bennett. 1 

111 Beply to Scientific American. Bennett. 1 

112 Sensible Sermon. Kev. M. J. Savage. 2 

113 Come to Jesus. Bennett. 2 

114 Where Was Jesus Born? S. H. Preston. 1 

115 The Wonders of Prayer. Bennett. 2 

116 The Sunday Question. Bennett . 2 

117 Constantine the Great. S. H. Preston. 3 

118 The Irrej^ressible Conflict between Christianity and 


119 The New Faith. Stoddard. 3 

120 The New Age. W. S. Bell. 10 

121 Ingersoll’s Review of his Reviewers. 3 

122 The Great Religions of the World. Bennett. 10 

123 Paine Vindicated. Ingersoll and the Observer . 10 

124 Sinful Saints. Bennett. 10 

125 German Liberalism. Clara Neymann. 2 

126 Crimes and Cruelties of Christianity. B. F. Underwood. 10 

127 Tyndall on Man’s Soul. 5 

129 Who was Jesus Christ? Coleman. 2 

130 The Ethics of Religion. Clifford. 5 

131 Paine was Junius. W. H. Burr. 3 

132 My Religious Belief. Ella E. Gibson. 1 

133 The Authority of the Bible. Underwood. 3 

134 Talks with the Evangelists. 5 

135 Is There a Future Life? Bennett, . 3 

136 Torquemada and the Inquisition. Bennett. 3 

137 Christian Love. C. L. James. 3 

138 Science of the Bible. John Jasper. 2 

139 Massacre of St. Bartholomew. S. H, Preston. 3 

140 Astro-Theology. 5 

141 Infidelity. H. W. Beecher.~. 2 

142 Synopsis of All Religions. E. L. Saxon. 10 

143 Chang Wau Ho. Eli Perkins. 2 

144 The Comstock Laws. 10 

145 If You Take Away My Religion, What Will You Give Me 

Instead? Martin.•.. 10 














































16 


TRUTH SEEKER CCVS RUBL/C ATI OKS. 


146 Seymore Times Prayer.... 2 

147 Reply to the Index on Comstock Laws. 10 

148 When Did Paul Live? Scholasticus. 2 

149 Age of Shams. 3 

150 The Liberty of Printing and Reply. Hurlbut and Wake- 

man. 10 

151 What is the Bible? M. W H. 5 

152 A Remarkable Book. R. W. Douglas. 2 

153 Liberty and Morality. M. D. Conway. 5 

154 Reminiscences of Thomas Paine. David Bruce. 3 

155 Co-operation the Redeemer of Society. S. M. Papin.... 2 

156 Free Speech and Free Press. P. B. Shelley. 2 

157 Questions from a Western Reader. Bennett.. . 3 

158 The Fool’s Creed. 1 

159 Bennett Indignation Meeting at Boston. 5 

160 Sabbath Observance. W. E. Coleman. 3 

161 Protestant Persecutions. 3 

162 Eighth Letter from Ludlow Street Jail. Bennett. 10 

163 Ingersoll’s Creed.. 2 


Scientific Series. 


1 Hereditary Transmission. Prof Elsburg, M.D. 

2 Evolution; from the Homogeneous to the Heterogeneous. 

B. F. Underwood... 

3 Darwinism. B. F. Underwood. 

4 Literature of the Insane. F. R. Marvin... 

5 Responsibility of Sex. Mrs. Chase, M.D. 

6 Graduated Atmospheres. J. McCarroll. 

7 Death. Frederic R. Marvin, M.D. 

8 How do Marsupial Animals Propagate their Kind? A. B. 

Bradford. 

9 The Unseen World. Prof. John Fiske. 

10 The Evolution Theory—Huxley’s Three Lectures. 

11 Is America the New World. L. L. Dawson. 

12 Evolution Teaches neither Atheism nor Materialism. R. 

S. Brigham, M.D. 

13 Nibble at Mr. John Fiske’s Crumb for the Modern Sym¬ 

posium . 


5 


3 

5 

3 

2 

3 

2 

10 

10 

10 

5 

10 


Discount on one dollar’s worth 10 per cent off; on two dollars’ 
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The Truth Seeker, founded by D. M. Bennett, is to-day perhaps the 
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